This invention relates to a method of treating medical wastes with which medical wastes such as waste syringes, absorbent tissues and bandages are safety treated and all steps of the treatment process from reception of wastes to completion of treatment are identified by the appearance of the containers involved and it also relates to a safe container to be used for the treatment method.
Currently, medical wastes such as syringes, absorbent tissues and bandages are thrown into containers such as boxes with an open upper end and then dumped into large containers by garbage collectors, who carry them to incineration and/or reclamation sites for disposal. With such a disposal system, however, medical wastes can be exposed to atmosphere and become contacted with garbage persons and/or other persons during transportation and/or disposal processes. Since medical wastes can be contaminated by highly toxic substances and/or infectious germs, garbage persons and other persons who deal with wastes are liable to be infected by such substances and germs through sores and wounds on the body. Thus, disposal of medical wastes has been attracting attention of the modern society at large and establishment of a safe disposal method has become a matter of high priority.
On the other hand, syringes that have been used for blood drawing and other purposes are normally thrown away with capped needles or after removing needles from the syringes. Again, such a practice of waste disposal is accompanied by a high risk of infecting medical personnel with B-type hepatitis virus and AIDS as needles can erroneously puncture the body of the personnel while they are capping the needles or the content of syringes can contaminate fingers and hands of the personnel when the needles are removed from the syringes. With a view to getting rid of these problems, various containers which are provided with a particular means for safely removing needles from used syringes have been proposed, although such a container entails a risk of shedding the blood contained therein once it is toppled down by mistake so that the blood can eventually come to contact with and contaminate human bodies and such a container is so designed that it is used only for syringe needles and can not be used for containing syringe bodies and other medical wastes.